Course on restoring pollinator habitat

.
October 5, 9:00 am-4:30 pm
at UW Arboretum
Cost: $125
More information here

More native plants--better health for your family

.
LICHTMAN: "Is there evidence to suggest that it's better...to live among a lot of microbes in your house?"

DUNN: "Yes... we have a series of interesting anecdotes....

"...There's... a study in Finland... led by Ilkka Hanski, and this study looked at adolescents in houses that differed in which plant species they had in their backyard.

And those adolescents who grew up in houses with more native plants in their back yard had different microbes on their skin and were at a much reduced risk of allergy."

Meeting for proposed construction in Lake View County Park

.

Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013 at 6:00 pm at Lake View Reservoir

Lake View Reservoir (1320 Lake View Avenue) provides water storage and fire protection to a large portion of the Lake View Hill Neighborhood.

This reservoir is too small and has reached the end of its life.  The City proposes to construct a larger reservoir, improving water storage for the remainder of the city’s east side.

County considers a "Citizen Monitoring Program" for construction sites

..
The Dane County Office of Lakes and Watersheds has proposed a new, half-time position of volunteer coordinator.  The new position was outlined in the 2014 Budget Recommendations.

Proposed "citizen monitoring program" for construction sites

At its end, the budget proposal lists five activities that would benefit from increased volunteer participation.  One of them is the following...

"A community engagement coordinator could explore creation of a citizen monitoring program for construction sites. This requires the detailed attention of someone with well-developed volunteer engagement skills. Having more eyes and ears around the county identifying potential erosion problems could help protect water quality. Among other things, this person would need to be responsible for matching volunteers with sites, providing the materials needed for the activity, and collecting data on volunteer participation."

Edgewater Hotel reconstruction, by Findorff.

So even if the position is funded, the "monitoring program" is not a certainty.

The "citizen monitoring program" may have been inspired by ContractorReport.

County to partner with local governments in reducing stormwater pollution

.
"The county is accepting applications from local governments for its Urban Water Quality Grant Program, a partnership that helps reduce urban runoff pollution from fouling area lakes.

The county wants to partner with municipalities to improve old storm drain outlets that dump untreated water and litter into our lakes....

Hope for clean water in your neighborhood...

.
“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for.

And the most you can do is live inside that hope.

Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”

― Barbara Kingsolver,  Animal Dreams


More quotes
More photos
of Espiritu Santu island

Rain gardens in downtown Lansing, Michigan

.
Lansing is the capital of Michigan, and like Madison, it has a waterfront.  Lansing's state capitol building is located near where two rivers come together.

Lansing's waterfront on the Grand River.

Lansing has 55 new rain gardens located downtown (below), plus 170 conventional gardens.

Rain garden #2 at Thoreau School is growing nicely

.

The garden is coming along nicely--plants are starting to grow. We survived all the storms !  We've lost only 10-20 plants.

Plants in the heavy shade are growing very slowly.  So we trimmed some branches above.  In case poor soil--where the basin was excavated--is causing the slow growth, I am adding compost around all plants.  But this is taking a lot of time.

Not much watering has been required, but weeding is continuing.

We built a spillway for gardens #1 (built last year) and #2.  During a storm, it's amazing to see how garden #1 sucks up the water--very thirsty!  But if heavy rain continues for more than 15 min, garden #1 overflows, and then #2 gets a deluge.

#          #          #

The full story about this garden.